Open and honest employee communication sets employee engagement experts, Reward Gateway, up for success as they enter a new season of growth.

Reward Gateway is in the running to win the Innovation and Creativity award at this year’s Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) Awards. The awards programme celebrates HR excellence, with this category recognising the outstanding initiatives or programmes which support and create a culture which stimulates creativity and harnesses innovation.

The business has been recognised for successfully rolling out unique and innovative internal communications campaign, Project Solar, as the company went through a change of investor in July 2015. The goals of the project were to protect the company’s transparent culture and keep every employee connected to the project.

The ground-breaking global campaign activities included:

An “Alternative IM” - In addition to the traditional ‘information memorandum’ (IM) which explains the business and its market, employees wrote and designed a beautiful coffee table photo book telling the story of RG

Personalised share letters - Five percent of Reward Gateway is employee owned, so everyone received a personalised share letter showing exactly how they’d benefit from the investment

Engagement Hub - Reward Gateway setup an area on their own employee engagement technology, SmartHub®, where employees could ask questions, find the latest updates, and read a blog written by the CEO

Meet the investor video - a video was created showing interviews with new investor Great Hill Partners L.P. having them candidly talk about who they were and why they were excited to work with RG

Announcement - once the investor had been chosen, the news was filmed and broadcast to all seven offices worldwide simultaneously

Celebration party - after nine months of hard work, employees celebrated together with a global party that spanned seven offices.

By putting employees at the heart of the project, involving them in every step, and taking them on the journey, Reward Gateway, was able to create a new investment process resulting in a highly engaged, loyal workforce which drove an outstanding revenue growth.

In turn, Great Hill Partners L.P. has been able to truly understand Reward Gateway’s culture and business model thanks to the effective communication channels used.

“RG’s incredibly unique communication products helped us understand their business in a way most companies don’t normally do.” says Chris Busby, Partner at Great Hill Partners L.P.

“Employee engagement is what we live and breathe and open and honest communication are core to the unique culture here at Reward Gateway. We had some huge challenges to overcome at the start of this campaign, but by using innovative and creative communication techniques, we were able to achieve an outstanding outcome“ says Robert Hicks, Group HR Director at Reward Gateway.

Other finalists in this category include Aurizon, Australian Taxation Office, Bayer Australia and New Zealand, Monash College Pty Ltd and Qantas.

The winners for the 2016 AHRI Awards will be announced on the 1st December 2016.